


I'm little, but I'm coming for the crown

by Luthor



Category: Jane the Virgin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Irresponsible Caffeine Intake, Mental Health Discussions, Over-Sharing, in which The Kids Are Not Alright they're stressed out and they need a break
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 05:44:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15381957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthor/pseuds/Luthor
Summary: Luisa life models for Rose's art class.





	I'm little, but I'm coming for the crown

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Lorde's 'Still Sane'. 
> 
> Idk, guys, I just wanted to have some fun and keep writing for this pairing.

Rose had taken the life drawing class on a whim, thinking that she could fit it in between her busy law school schedule with little issue.

 

And, for the most part, that is the case.

 

It’s a decision that, when the latest volunteer model walks through the door, Rose comes to quickly regret.

 

  
  
  
  
The art room is always a little on the cooler side, due to its size and location within the university’s main building. The walls are the original undecorated stone, and as per the nature of the room, it’s the size of an average classroom albeit with less clutter. A circle of easels has been set up around the edges of the room, facing inward to a slightly raised platform where a solitary chair waits for an occupant.

 

It’s not the most well-lit room, but it is all the art students could find for their 18:30 – 19:30 Thursday evening time slot.

 

Rose takes her typical easel against the back wall of the room. The canvas and her drawing tools (a pouch of new charcoal), she has to provide herself, and sets them out for easy access while the others around her do the same. The class is largely made up of and ran by art students attending the university, although there are others here among them like Rose, who simply come for the fun of it.

 

The class had started out as a hobby. It’s a way for Rose to curb her stress into something productive so that she doesn’t combust beneath the pressure of getting her law degree. And, it’s easy. Fun, really, when she doesn’t have to worry about competing alongside the genuine art students.

 

(Not that they’d call it competing, per se.)

 

Rose shrugs out of her jacket while she waits for the model to arrive and folds it over the back of her stool. She is still vaguely out of breath from power-walking so as not to arrive late and draws all of her hair up into a loose but tidy bun, alleviating herself from the heat.

 

At the centre of the room, the chair remains suspiciously empty.

 

“Hey, Jess, we have someone modelling today, right?” she asks her neighbour, a green-haired girl with colourful tattoos. She grins when she looks at Rose, and the pencil that she’d been balancing between her upper lip and her nose falls down into her waiting hand. “Because, if I have to draw Andres’ lunch leftovers again…”

 

“Relax, we have someone.”

 

Rose nods her head and frowns. “Why are you smiling?”

 

“I’m not smiling.”

 

“You are, and it’s filling me with dread.” Rose casts a quick look toward the door, but still their life model has not appeared. She turns back to Jess with a pleading expression. “Please, not the creepy guy who came in last week? He was far too eager to take his clothes off to a roomful of students.”

 

Jess barks a laugh but rolls her eyes. “No, it’s another student.”

 

Rose makes a quiet noise of sympathy.

 

“I don’t know her,” Jess continues, “but I’ve heard some things.”

 

That piques Rose’s interest. “Things?”

 

“Rumours, mainly— also, that she is _insanely_ hot.”

 

Rose stares at her, deadpan, but Jess’ smile does not weaken any.

 

“There is nothing sexy about this situation,” Rose tells her, turning back to her easel and adjusting it for comfort. “So, please try to use your creative brain over your lesbian brain, at least for the next hour?”

 

“You say that like you can ever just turn it off,” Jess laments.

 

They fall into a companionable quiet, after that, and Rose loses herself in her preparations. She almost misses the sound that the classroom door makes when it opens, but the resulting _bang_ of it closing jolts her, and the rest of the room, into complete silence. They turn as one toward the newcomer, and Rose does a double-take.

 

A girl of no more than five-foot-four strides through the parting left between the easels like it’s a catwalk. She’s wearing the clean white robe that the art students provide to all of their life models, but Rose could be convinced that it’s eccentric high fashion with the way that she sells it. The girl is tan and brunette and focused as a knife-point.

 

She has to be older than Rose, just a touch, or else she has enviable confidence.

 

Rose isn’t about to cross out the likelihood of it being a bit of both, when the girl flaunts her way to the centre of the room and disrobes without pause. She discards the robe like she’s in the privacy of her own bedroom, and Rose appreciates her body objectively— there really is _nothing_ sexy about this situation, but Rose wouldn’t deny that she’s attractive.

 

She is distractedly watching the model, still, when she takes her seat and poses, directly facing Rose.

 

Rose blinks across at her.

 

It’s not that she’s uncomfortable, exactly.

 

The model makes direct eye contact with her, like she’s forcing something out of Rose, or else searching deep like there’s barely any distance between them. Rose feels her gaze like a physical thing brushing over her, raising gooseflesh. She stares at Rose and Rose stares right back. She hopes it comes across like a matador staring down a bull, but then the model smiles at her, and Rose understands that it’s much more like a rabbit and a pair of headlights. She turns back to her easel with a start.

 

The blank canvas stares back at her, giving nothing away.

 

Well, then.

 

Briefly, Rose casts a quick look toward Jess, but despite her friend’s earlier bravado, she appears totally unaffected as she prepares to begin her drawing.

 

When Rose peeks around her canvas, again, it’s to find that the model has not adjusted her position any. She is still staring at Rose, like _she’s_ the one on display, with all of her vulnerabilities laid out before her. Rose has never felt the power dynamic between artist and subject shift so drastically, and it has her feeling vaguely off-kilter, like the earth’s axis has tilted unnaturally, almost imperceptibly, but enough for her to feel it and for it to feel _wrong_.

 

Rose stares at the model and wonders, who here is capturing whom?

 

Shaking herself, she picks up her charcoal and returns to the canvas, trying to mentally plot out how she will begin.

 

Typically, she begins with the general shapes and curves of the body, following the model’s direction— vague and simple and absolutely within her capabilities. Right now, staring between her canvas and her subject, Rose hesitates. The model is facing her exactly, with her legs crossed and her arms folded, using the chair to her absolute advantage.

 

In all other circumstances, she would be an easy subject.

 

If it was just a photograph of her, Rose reckons she’d pin it down easily, but it’s not a photograph.

 

It’s a very real person sitting in front of her, and she is bursting with something—not quite energy, but _life_ , with something indomitable and impossible to pin down. She cannot put her down on canvas because nothing about the girl wants to be _put down_. Rose reckons even if she took a picture of her model, right now, it would turn out blurred, like not even a flash could contain her.

 

Worst of all, is when Rose meets the model’s eyes, and she can practically see the understanding within them.

 

She is jeering, she is making a _demand_ of Rose without outright telling her what, and she knows that she’s making this a struggle for her.

 

Rose hates it.

 

She watches as the rest of the class begin to make their outlines, to make marks on their own canvases without her level of inner-turmoil, and it only frustrates her further.

 

Ahead of her, her attention unwavering, the model’s lips curve as though to ask her, _what are you waiting for?_ Rose doesn’t have a good enough answer to the question, and so she forces herself to begin.

 

It’s not the model’s body that she focuses on, even if that is really the point of her attending this class.

 

Instead, Rose studies her face – the defined chin and jaw, the round cheeks, the eyes that watch Rose, still, as she works. Her portraiture has always been her strongest skill, although all of her self-taught rules fall naturally aside as she begins to sketch. The earlier reluctance from the model sinks away so quickly that Rose has to wonder if it was reluctance at all.

 

Smirking lips and goading eyes become the foundations in Rose’s artwork. The model makes it the easiest thing for Rose to capture just a little piece of her.

 

Rose’s movements become an instinctive flow. There is a kind of peace, in this, in putting a person onto canvas, in watching them appear in the scratches and smudges of her charcoal stick. There’s usually a whole lot more struggle in it, too, but the model gives Rose everything that she needs.

 

Though, she is by no means an easy model to work with.

 

Rose doubts that she’s done anything like this before, or whether she will be invited to do it again.

 

The model has no concern for the artists. She treats the room like she’s in the centre of a coffee shop, unaware that she’s being drawn. When she gets an itch, she scratches it. When one leg begins to cramp, she switches positions. She rubs the gooseflesh as it appears on her arms, and she yawns behind both hands, and she stretches and flicks her hair for comfort.

 

(Several times, as she’s working on defining the model’s face on her canvas, Rose catches a new movement just ahead of her, and hears several sharp intakes of breath from artists around the room having just lost the pose that they’d spent the last eight minutes sketching.)

 

The model makes them work for it, but for Rose, she gives herself over entirely.

 

* * *

 

By the end of the class, the model slips back into the provided robe and disappears to dress.

 

While the other artists begin packing away and chatting, Rose studies her canvas. It’s not the best work that she’s ever done, but there’s something raw and natural about it, something— remarkable. It makes her stop and look, at the jawline that she’d captured perfectly, at the eyes that are almost as dark in real life as they are in her depiction.

 

If she had the time to clean it up, it could be something special.

 

To her side, Rose overhears Jess grumbling to herself about her own hazy sketch, and waves her goodbye once she’s packed up to leave.

 

Rose feels a presence step up beside her, before she can turn.

 

“Don’t tell the others I said this,” a voice whispers, too close to her ear, all warm breath and earthy perfume, “but yours is easily the best.”

 

Rose turns into the noise, and finds herself face to face with her subject. She is momentarily struck, her eyes drawn to the little features that she couldn’t have noticed from the distance that she’d been working from. Her gaze dots between the freckles and moles on her face, and a ledge of disappointment sits heavy in Rose’s gut; she’d completely missed these from her portrait.

 

Next, her gaze lands on a smirking mouth, and Rose realises that she’s staring.

 

“Uh,” she says, and blushes.

 

The model blinks, smile unwavering. She hasn’t moved an inch away from Rose, and her perfume is beginning to make her head spin.

 

“It’s not perfect,” Rose says, and turns back to her canvas, because this version of the model feels far more approachable—like looking at a picture instead of staring directly into the sun. The model turns to look with her, and Rose can’t help but watch her out of the corner of her eye. She can’t help but want to ask her what she thinks of it, what she likes about it.

 

“It’s good, though,” the girl says, admiring still. “Everyone else drew my boobs weird.”

 

“Your boobs are perfect.”

 

Rose curses herself internally. In her peripheral vision, the model is grinning.  

 

“Thanks. Do you want to get coffee?”

 

Rose turns to her, properly, uncertain and surprised.

 

She’s never seen the life models outside of her classes, before, helped by her not actually attending the university where it’s held, but she can’t deny that there’s something intriguing about this one. Pint-sized as she may be, Rose imagines that her subject has little trouble commanding the attention of rooms much larger than the one they’re currently in.  

 

During her brief hesitation, Rose thinks of her schedule. That she’d carved time away for the art class itself had taken hours of carefully shifting around her planner. Still, she finds herself wanting to say yes, and with the model looking at her the way that she is, Rose can’t justify not giving in to her.

 

“Sure, okay. Let me clean up and grab my things.”

 

* * *

 

 

They end up in a 24hr _Starbucks_ with steaming mugs and Rose’s portrait sitting in the booth beside her.

 

“My name’s Luisa, by the way,” the model says, while dipping her teabag into her mug by the string. She’s been eyeing her portrait ever since it was set down, facing her. Even when she’s openly trying not to look, her gaze returns there like the portrait is singing her name. She juts her chin towards it, now, and asks, “So, what are you gonna do with that?”

 

Rose considers the canvas. “Probably put it away, somewhere. I don’t have a lot of room for clutter.”

 

“Can I have it?”

 

“Are you serious?” Rose looks at her, eyes-wide, but Luisa only nods. “Oh, sure, if you want it.”

 

She picks the canvas up and passes it across the table to Luisa, a stupid smile fighting at her lips. She rarely even hangs her own work up, and has never been asked for a piece by anyone other than her father. Her giddiness falters, slightly, when Luisa sets the portrait back down beside herself, and Rose has the perfect opportunity to compare them— to criticise.

 

“Seriously,” Luisa laughs, “you need to work on your confidence.”

 

“My confidence is fine,” Rose huffs. Luisa makes an unconvincing noise, but lets it drop. Rose watches her as Luisa plays with her tea; she has too many questions for her, but all of them catch in her throat when she tries to speak. Finally, she settles on something she’s more than a little curious about. “Why did you volunteer to be a life model?”

 

Luisa looks up with a quick smile. “I’m a narcissist.”

 

It’s a lie, an obvious one and an easy one, meant to distract Rose and lead her to other conclusions than the truth. Rose squints her eyes against it, like she’ll be able to see Luisa all the clearer if she’s just a little blurrier around the edges. She stops when Luisa’s expression does not falter and her vision begins to strain.

 

“You’ve never done it before, though,” Rose guesses.

 

Luisa stretches her arms above her head. Beneath the table, her feet nudge accidentally against Rose’s and then make a lazy retreat. She settles back in the leather booth like the movement has sapped the last of her energy, and shrugs her shoulders. For a moment, she looks leagues smaller than she should— than she had, certainly, when she’d first walked into the art room.

 

“No, I’ve never stripped naked in front of a bunch of strangers before.”

 

Rose tilts her head, hair falling in front of her face. “You were a natural at that,” she says. “Though, I think you gave at least three people an aneurism every time you moved.”

 

Luisa snorts and doesn’t look at all sorry.

 

“So, why’d you do it?”

 

“Hm?”

 

“Strip naked in front of a bunch of strangers,” Rose clarifies.

 

Luisa looks at her like she’s weighing something up. She bites her lip and leans forward, puts her crossed arms on the table, and stares at Rose like she had in the classroom— like she’s searching for something within Rose, or else demanding it from her. Rose’s body prickles with anticipation.

 

She has a feeling that Luisa could move mountains with the look that she’s giving her, or at least level them; she looks like the kind of girl who could bring the whole world crashing down upon herself, whether she’d ever mean to or not.

 

“Can I tell you something?” Luisa asks, and Rose nods her head, over-eager.

 

_You can tell me anything_ , she thinks, and congratulates herself when she doesn’t actually say it.

 

“I just got out of hospital.”

 

Luisa says it and looks down at her tea. Rose watches as she winds the string of her teabag around two fingers, momentarily hampering the blood flow, and then unwinds it again. Rose would call it a nervous habit, but there’s something relentlessly brave about Luisa, that calling her _nervous_ feels inaccurate, somehow. Still, it takes her a good few seconds of silence to meet Rose’s gaze.

 

Rose pushes her hair away from her face, leaning closer. “Was it serious?”

 

“Do you ever feel like going totally Britney circa 2007?”

 

“Like,” Rose says, hesitant, “cracking under the enormous amount of pressure that you’re under and telling everybody around you to go fuck the hell off?”

 

“Exactly.”

 

“Constantly,” Rose sighs. “At least three times a day.”

 

“Right?” Luisa groans. “Anyway, I actually kinda _did that_ , but there was less hair cutting and more genuine _freaking_ hallucinations, but— you get the idea?”

 

Rose nods her head, dazed.

 

Luisa falls quiet after her revelation, but it’s a loaded kind of quiet. She is still thinking, Rose can see it on her face. There is more to tell, and Luisa looks like she wants to tell it, but that she perhaps isn’t sure of how to get the words out. Rose wants to help her, too, but Luisa is something of an enigma to her, a stranger, and the simple truth of it is that she doesn’t know _how_ to help.

 

Rose has never been good at offering comfort.

 

She prefers to hold her own fears and insecurities tight to her chest, like a shitty hand of cards that she’s bluffing the big chips on. Rose doesn’t know how to expose herself the way that Luisa does; she would sooner tear out internal organs than the secrets that are buried inside of her, just as deep. Luisa’s willingness to talk, then, her startling and sharp honesty, only draws Rose further in with curiosity.

 

“I hope you’re doing better, now,” Rose tells her, when she realises that they’ve been quiet for a while, and Luisa looks up with a small but shining smile.

 

“I am.” She folds her hands around her mug, bringing it in for a quick sip. “But, that entire experience is what led me here. Or, led me to strip naked in a freezing cold art class, to answer your question.” Her expression drops, and Luisa leans forward like she doesn’t want anybody overhearing. “They have heating in there, right? Do they _want_ for their models to be as uncomfortable as possible for a solid hour—is that part of the struggling artist thing?”

 

Rose laughs and shakes her head. “Trust me, that room’s a lot warmer when you’re wearing clothes.”

 

“I’ll take your word for it.”

 

Rose tucks her hair behind her ear, biting her lip. “I’m not following, though. How did Britney circa 2007 lead to life modelling?”

 

Luisa blinks at her, surprised, like she’s just now realised that Rose isn’t privy to the silent conversation that she’s been having inside of her own mind.

 

“Well,” she says, wetting her lips. “It’s difficult to explain. Let’s say, I’ve been downward spiralling  for a lot longer than it took for it to all come out. And, when it did, I felt like I’d been cracked open. Like, I’d held all of that inside of myself for so long, like I’d always really had the ability to go off the rails like that _inside_ of me, and then out of nowhere _everybody_ got to see it.

 

“I didn’t get a choice in that. I didn’t get to stop it, or hide it, or explain it. They saw the very worst of it, of me, just like that,” she snaps her fingers and falls quiet for a moment. “I guess, doing something like this, it’s kind of like I’m taking that choice back. I’m exposing myself in a different way, maybe, but it’s on my terms. I choose who sees, and when, and what they see.”

 

She looks at Rose for a moment like she is stranded, totally lost. Like she’s just now realising how much she’s oversharing with a stranger.

 

“It’s my way of tethering myself back to a reality where I’m a real person who’s in control of herself, again.” Her voice sounds too small when she asks, “Does that make sense?”

 

“Yes,” Rose says without hesitation. “That actually makes a lot of sense.”

 

Luisa visibly relaxes.

 

“Thanks,” she says, and she’s smiling so gently that Rose doesn’t register what she’s said, at first.

 

“For what?”

 

“For listening.”

 

Rose wants to tell her, _anytime_ , but it’s maybe too presumptuous. Instead, she smiles and picks up the cup of coffee that she absolutely should not be drinking at this time. She sips and looks around and remembers where she is, and that there are other people in the _Starbucks_ with them. Her gaze is drawn back to Luisa, easily and without thought.

 

“So,” she says, looking between Luisa and the portrait beside her. “You genuinely like that?”

 

Luisa looks at the portrait, too.

 

“Yeah,” she agrees. “It makes me look—”

 

She stops herself, like she can’t find the word.

 

“Constipated?” Rose unhelpfully supplies, frowning at her artwork, and Luisa turns to mock-glare at her, but she’s smiling.

 

“Ass.”

 

Luisa shakes her head and turns back to the portrait, considering it. And, maybe it isn’t a perfect copy, and maybe it’s smudged with Rose’s charcoal fingerprints around the edges, but Luisa smiles when she sees it and that she seems so fond of it, at all, is all the praise that Rose needs.

 

“I like seeing myself from your perspective,” she tells Rose. “It makes me feel real.”

 

Luisa turns back to Rose, in the resulting silence, and laughs in a way that Rose could become addicted to.

 

“I’ve made this a really weird night for you, haven’t I?” Luisa asks, but she’s smiling.

 

She’s shining and bursting and radiating warmth, and Rose can’t help but smile back at her.

 

“Yeah,” she says. “Can we do it again?”

 

Luisa’s grin does not leave her in any doubt that they will.

 


End file.
